The Press Monday, May 3, 1926. The Coal Strike.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18681, 3 May 1926, Page 6

The Press Monday, May 3, 1926. The Coal Strike.

6 (It is impossible at this stage to saj , much more about the British coa] strike than that it appears to be a melancholy fact. When we discussed the position a week ago we hoped, and kept on hoping till the very end of the week, which brought the end also of the subsidy and of the temporary agreement, that both sides would concede enough during the last few hours to keep the industry going. The i owners apparently did concede something, but the miners nothing. As far as can be judged from the full enough, but necessarily excited and confused, messages which have already reached 1 us, the rupture came at last through the refusal of the miners to concede anything at all until the industry had tried the effect of reorganisation. While the owners seem-much to blame for delaying their revised offer till the very last day, the fact remains that they did make an offer in the end, and that the miners made none at all. We cannot possibly say on this side of the world whether the concession made by the owners—a uniform national minimum wage 20 per cent, above the standard wage —could still have been made without the stipulation of a temporary eight-hours' day. All we can say is that it is nonsense for Labour leaders to say that the Government committed " a crime "against Society" when it was their own followers who refused, with the fate of society hanging in the balance, to abate even temporarily, and with a Government guarantee, one jot or tittle in their original demands. The fight may be "unnecessary," it may be "wicked," it may be "criminal." It is certainly an appalling calamity. But before Mr Ramsay Mac Donald is entitled to make such charges he must show that the miners offered something better than the owners' national minimum and the Prime Minister's pledge that the seven-hour day would remain on the Statute Books and a Commission be set up not later than December 31st, 1929, to determine whether " as a result of reorganisation " or better trade or both," the industry could revert to seven hours in fact as well as in law. However, the question now is how long the upheaval will last. If the general strike, of which the Unions have approved, follows at once, there can hardly be a prolonged struggle, but may be a very bitter one. No one can say what the effect may be of the interposition of the organisation for maintaining supplies, for which the way has been prepared by the King's proclamation that a state of emergency exists, but it is obvious enough that if there is tactlessness on one side or truculence on the other there may be some very unfortunate developments. The real tragedy of the situation is the fact that the miners have invited the nation at large to crush them. They have challenged, not the owners oj: the Government but the general public, to compel them to submit to worse conditions than anyone wishes them to endure or would vote for inflicting oi. them in calm moments. They have, in short, thrown away the prospects of a settlement of reason for one of violence, and it will be poor consolation when the storm has passed to know that both sides, as Mr Baldwin has already declared, will be "heavily "blamed by the country." t